


his name

by doqteeth



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Arthur dies, Death, F/M, Grieving, Post-Video Game: Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), Sad, TB, This Is Sad, enjoy fools, i also cried when i wrote this, i was in my feelings and also on cold medicine when i wrote this, sad boy hours, this is just really sad yall, yee yee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 23:50:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17970422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doqteeth/pseuds/doqteeth
Summary: the first few weeks are always the hardest.





	his name

The first few weeks were always the hardest.

You stared upward, blankly, at the ceiling of the half-rotted cabin you’d taken up residence in. You did not sleep easy or well, your dry, itching hands always wrapped around some gun or knife or other weapon. You spoke while you slept, mumbling frantic babbles of words and occasionally calling out a name.

His name.

Even thinking of it hurt, like ripping a scab off a newly-healed wound. A deep, yearning hole had settled in the very pit of your heart, one that ached from the moment you opened your bloodshot eyes to the moment you closed them again to chase sleep, fruitlessly so.

You could still feel him, feel the warm, heavy hand on your back, your shoulder, could still feel the hands swallowing your own, the ghost of breath on your neck, the rumble of a hum in your ear.

He was still there, but by God, you wanted him gone.

Why were you, of all people, still alive? What were you hoping for? You had been part of the Van Der Linde Gang and had seen its fiery demise.

You could still smell woodsmoke and gunpowder.

You remembered, that night, how he, his eyes red and inflamed from illness had sent you fleeing from camp on a horse with no name, the gunshots decimating his weak voice. 

You didn’t even get to say that you loved him, could only look tearfully at him as you ran, your horse frothing at the bit and your legs weak.

It was how much you loved him that made him send you fleeing, and it was how much you loved him that made you come back. You’d wheeled the horse around, your bottom lip bloody from ripping at it with your teeth and tears streaming down your face. You needed to see him, needed to speak to him, just once.

And you did see him.

At the first break of dawn, sunlight touching the ridges of the mountain he lay so peacefully on. Gone was that horrid rattle in his chest, the painful wheezing in his voice, the hacking, bloody coughing that plagued him. In place was a peace that he, in life, never truly knew. The weathered lines on his face were softened by the sun, and he lay still. Old blood formed tiny red-rimmed stains on the gravel and loose stone beneath him.

The cry that ripped so painfully from your throat seemed to echo across the valley, bouncing back against distant mountains and hills and gullies. You collapsed to your knees, hands weak and shaking, sobs wracking your body.

You screamed his name over and over and over, crawling to him, clutching him to your chest like a child. Tears formed, bubbled over and spilled, dripping onto his dusty shirt, his damn dusty blue shirt that he liked so much.

The fabric tore in your clawed fingers as you clenched at it. 

You lay like that, sobbing and screaming your wrath to the high heavens, for a long, long time. Let the damn Pinkertons find you, you thought viciously to yourself. Let them feel the pain that held you in a vice grip.

When you were too weak to cry, you whispered, keened his name, that you loved him, broken only by rasping hiccups as your body gathered its lost air. Nobody came to find you, you and him, alone on the desolate hilltop. Only eagles soared around you, crooning their high-pitched calls to each other.

It was sunset by the time you forced yourself away from him, your chest clenched and hurting. You shuffled on your knees, sharp pebbles digging into your skin. What were you going to do now? Where would you go? The questions came fast, leaving you babbling incoherently to yourself in a form of answer, your hands wringing.

When you tried to stand, your legs failed, your ankles and knees wobbling. You tried again, and succeeded, facing the setting sun. You saw, silhouetted across the great plains, a stag, standing still and facing you. It was some distance away, but you felt the heavy gaze on you. 

And then it left, disappearing into the long twilight shadows.

You scrubbed at your puffy eyes and shook your pounding ahead. Only thing to do was to bury him. You repeated the statement over and over as you began to dig in the dirt with your hands, scooping out great handfuls of soil with a kind of vicious intensity. 

Your hands were filthy and raw and bleeding by the time you were done, but you did not feel the sting of your sliced palms as you carefully began to carry him to his final resting place. He was heavier now.

Dead weight. The words oiled into your mind like a grease slick, coiling around your brain like a cold serpent. You shook your head.

You lowered him, your arms nearly failing you. But even your limbs seemed to know that it was no time to give out. Tears began to impossibly flow again as you slumped by the open grave, staring down at him. He was so peaceful, finally, so still. He was only like that when he was sleeping, you thought bitterly. A broken, quiet sob slipped past your copper-tinged lips.

You did not want to bury him. But some deep presence, some knowledge within you told you that you must.

So you did, numbly. You began to scoop dirt over him, carefully. His face, now pale and without the blotches of sickness, was last, swallowed by the earth’s trusting hands like his had taken your own so long ago in Valentine.

When it was done you sat by his grave and said nothing, instead staring out at the wide expanse of grassland beneath the ridge you were sitting on. Pronghorns, deer, other unnamed beasts darted in between clumps of sagebrush and cacti, and buzzards circled lazily far above. You looked between the landscape and the grave periodically, wondering what he would say if he was here. Maybe something about how you were a damn fool to come back, and you knew, and oh, God, how you wished he were here!

But he wasn’t, and the thought crashed onto you like a discordant piano note.

He really wasn’t here anymore. Not anymore. Not ever.

And perhaps it was that, that thought, that finally pushed you. You didn’t sleep that night, just let the tears flow quietly as you sat a vigil near his grave, twisting grass in your bloody fingers.

When morning came, it saw you still wide awake, carving at a hunk of wood for a headstone. When you were done, it wasn’t pretty, but it was real. And it meant something. And it helped.

You gave in when you saw the headstone, wildflowers entwined in the bark of the wood, writing carefully scratched into it.

You murmured an apology, a forgiveness, a declaration of love, and a farewell all in one and gently touched the wood, feeling the splinters bristle beneath your scabby hands.

You took a shuddering breath and clambered on top of your horse, settling back in the saddle like an old house, creaking and groaning almost arthritically. You rode away, tears pricking at your eyes but never quite spilling over.

It lead into now, your fleeing of his gravesite. You’d been flitting away from the law for a while now, trying to figure out what you could do, short of turning yourself in, or just putting a damn bullet in your brain at this point. You didn’t know. But what you did know is that you could figure out something. You always did. You were slipperier than a snake and a fox would be jealous of your cunning, he told you.

Birds chirped outside, heralding another sleepless morning. You dug through your satchel, exhaustion making your bones creak and eyes heavy. Your scarred fingers brushed paper and you pulled it out.

You smiled weakly as you looked at his photograph, light fingertips trailing over his face. 

“Oh, Arthur,” you whispered gently.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope u cried


End file.
